Graduation projects

Community Centre

Principal author

Tiron Andrei

Collaborators (team members)

Blidariu Cristian

Project year

2017

Location

Sandra, jud. Timis, RO

Learning institution

Facultatea de Arhitectură și Urbanism Timișoara

Project description

Traditional rural heritage is the result of a continuous dialogue with the environment, with a certain cultural, social and historical context. Fragility is based not only on the characteristics of the materials used, but rather on its ease of transformation and adaptation. Through direct contact with the city and the modern world, traditional rural heritage disappears with amazing rapidity. The old houses are abandoned, the villages transforms, and the material and immaterial rural heritage becomes the subject of a museum. The economic and social context of recent years has led to a degradation of the traditional Banat village influenced by modernization and globalization. The direction of architecture and urbanism is uncertain, with no clear direction from the authorities or the civil society. We have Sandra as a study, a village with an unique history and morphology, where we have the opportunity to study and preserve part of the Banat region's past, and through it the revival of the whole village, and maybe the surrounding regions. Understanding a small investment in such a complex context makes this project a real challenge both for the study and for proposing a final solution. The intervention will involve a starting point for several urban and civic revitalization processes: concrete involvement of the civic and school community, highlighting the "Zona Pietei" rural ensemble, a historical monument with the code TM-II-aB-06293 and equipping the commune with missing or deficient spaces. The big opportunity of the project is the possibility of rural regeneration (so rarely nowadays) by punctual insertion of an element in the built-up tissue. It has the potential to be an example in the near future for the limotropha area. The cultural center can become a satellite of Timisoara Cultural Capital 2021, having a perfect geographic position, offering tourists the opportunity to experience the life of the traditional Banat village, to visit a museum dedicated to the Swabians, to know the history and the past that have defined the whole area. The cultural complex emphasizes the use of traditional building technologies, mound walls, brick and wooden structures, lime plasters with wrought iron elements combined with modern technologies, energy recovery, solar panels, ventilation, last generation insulation and geothermal energy. Besides the design side, the project involved the relationship with the Urbanistic, Landscape, Restoration of Buildings and social elements, transforming a seemingly simple project into a major challenge. Finally, the project will be part of the local identity, forming a cultural and an touristic brand.

Text description of the author

I grew up in a simple family, educated in a modest Christian way of life. I graduated in 2017, forming in me a self-critical way of thinking. After graduating, I started working in an office in Timisoara. Following these experiences, my perception of architecture and urban planning has changed my way of life. For me, architecture is more than just a job or a profession, it is the link between technology, history and nature. With the right tools, with the help of urbanism and architecture we can change whole communities, we can influence people's lives for good or for bad. I think architecture is a profession with a major impact on society, and for that very reason we must be responsible for the choices and actions in this field.

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